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Femme assise (Seated Woman)

Maker

(artist)
1881-1973

Title

Femme assise (Seated Woman)

Date of Production

1921-1925

Medium

pen and black ink on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 35 cm
Width: 26.2 cm

Accession Number

D.1932.SC.145

Mode of Acquisition

Samuel Courtauld, gift, 1932

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

© Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2023

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords




Label Text

Picasso's assured command of line is apparent in this seemingly effortless study of a female nude. The relaxed pose, typical of those adopted by academic models, may allude to the classical sculptures he would have seen in Rome. Picasso takes a minimal approach and omits the outlines of the model's waist and right thigh, compelling the viewer to fill in the missing details. Picasso thus evokes a sense of the body rather than attempting to describe it extensively.

Notes

Picasso’s confident command of line is exemplified in this seemingly effortless study of a seated female nude. A youthful woman sits prostrate, her left arm anchoring her to the ground and taking her weight while her right casually rests on her raised knee. Her gentle gaze is focused on something outside the composition. She is represented with a delicate lyricism that is typical of Picasso’s most linear drawings. Consciously avoiding the variable thickness of line that a quill pen offers, Picasso has used an even pressure with a relaxed hand to produce fine, regular lines that hardly fluctuate in either width or tone. His assured command of the pen and the model’s relaxed pose lend a calmness to the drawing, while the arrangement of the model’s limbs into a square form creates a self-contained composition of great order and rhythm. The woman’s reclining pose is one typical of the positions required of a model for traditional academic training, and also echoes the classical sculpture the artist would have seen when he travelled to Rome in 1917. This three-month trip, which Picasso undertook to work on theatre designs for the ballet Parade, spurred his interest in classicising imagery. Though he readily draws upon such motifs, his treatment is far from conventional. Rather than extensively describing the figure, Picasso deliberately omits elements, most notably her right thigh and the outline of her abdomen, encouraging the viewer’s imagination to complete these areas on his behalf. Despite the series of broken lines, minimally suggested contours and the ambiguity of where the background stops and the figure begins, Picasso’s fluent draughtsmanship produced a figure of great solidity and monumentality. [Entry from The Courtauld Collection: A Vision for Impressionism, exh. cat., Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2019]

Provenance

Paul Rosenberg (Paris); purchased there by Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947), January 1924 (2,000 F); Courtauld Gift 1932

Exhibition History

Courtauld Connects Regional Programme - Radical Drawing, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, 18/10/2019-19/01/2020

The Courtauld Collection. A Vision for Impressionism, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris, 20/02/2019-17/06/2019

Special Display - Picasso, Matisse, Maillol: The Female Model, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 24/01/2013-26/05/2013 ...More

The Spanish Line - From Ribera to Picasso, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 13/10/2011-15/01/2012

Draw: conversations around the legacy of drawing, mima (Middlesborough Institutue of Modern Art), Middlesborough, 26/01/2007-11/04/2007

The Nude: 19th & 20th Century Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Prints, Morley Gallery, London, 10/04/1975-24/05/1975

unnumbered typescript - title was possibly 'A Selection of Drawings from The Witt/Courtauld Collections [as exhibited in 1964 at University of Sussex, Falmer]', Nottingham University, 1966

Master Drawings from the Witt and Courtauld Collections, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 17/11/1962-22/12/1962

Drawings and Engravings from the Courtauld Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, December 1959-April 1960

France 1850-1950, Kettering Art Gallery, 1950 (June)

Samuel Courtauld memorial exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, 1948

Picasso in English collections, The London Gallery, London, 16/05/1939-03/06/1939 ...Less

Literature

Serres, Karen (ed.), The Courtauld Collection: A Vision for Impressionism, Paul Holberton Publishing 2019
no. 87, pp. 328-329
ill. p. 329

Véliz, Zahira, Spanish Drawings in the Courtauld Gallery: complete catalogue, London, 2011
no. 108
ill. p. 288

Draw: conversations around the legacy of drawing, mima, Middlesborough, 2007
p. 186 ...More

John House, Impressionism for England: Samuel Courtauld as Patron and Collector, Courtauld Institute Galleries 1994
no. 106
ill. p. 217

The nude: 19th & 20th century paintings, drawings, sculpture , prints, Morley Gallery, London, 1975
cat. no. 63
ill. repr.

Anthony Blunt and Philip Troutman, Master Drawings from the Witt and Courtauld Collections, 1962
cat. no. 97

Levy, Mervyn, The human form in art, London 1961
p. 83
ill. repr.

Drawings and engravings from the Courtauld Collection, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, Dec. 1959 - Apr. 1960, 1959-1960
cat. no. 30
ill. pl. 8

Cooper, Douglas, The Courtauld Collection, London 1954
no. 145
ill. pl. 78

Zervos, C., Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres, Paris 1952
vol. V, no. 48
ill. pl. 28

Home House Trustees, A catalogue of the pictures and other works of art at Home House, 20 Portman Square, London, London 1935
p. 49, no. 63 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: none.

Collector's mark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower right, black ink, signed, underlined: "Picasso"; lower left corner, graphite, former Home House inventory number, now erased: "H.H. 63". Verso: lower left, graphite, former inventory number: "HHF 63"; lower right, graphite: “35”. .

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